


these things take forever (i especially am slow)

by keycchan



Series: dust to dust [1]
Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Love Confessions, M/M, Pre-Canon, Unwise Use of Snowballs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-28
Updated: 2018-01-28
Packaged: 2019-03-10 14:26:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13503450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keycchan/pseuds/keycchan
Summary: “S’rry for the impromptu weightlifting session, Valentine,” Deacon says, slurs, hates the way his mouth doesn’t seem to be cooperating. His face hasn’t been much more than numb since it got slammed into concrete by a particularly pissed off raider a couple of hours back. “Not saying I hate what it’ll do to your shoulders though. I like my robodetectives broad. Rrrrr.”Prompt: how 'bout Nick/Deacon with 11: “Don’t you dare throw that snowba-, goddammit!”





	these things take forever (i especially am slow)

It’s freezing out here. And not like — not a polite, delicate lil’ shiver’s worth of  _ooh, golly, it’s cold_   — it’s legitimately cold enough that Deacon can barely feel his limbs. Teeth chattering in his jaw so much he’s this close to being a human castanet performance, breath coming out in frozen white huffs that dissipate into the air. Winter in the Commonwealth is rarely a kind mistress — less so when he’s covered in a frankly ridiculous amount of blood, one of his arms bent crooked from where the stimpak healed it all wrong, his ribs screaming in agony and his left leg useless from the gash he’s got on it. There’s just a lot of blood outside of his body than he’d like there to be, y’know?

But that’s just what happens when you get caught up in a raider’s nest with barely any backup with shattered stims. No biggie. Occupational hazard. Human resources are going to get an  _earful_  from him once he’s back at the Switchboard, something something health insurance, but that’s assuming he makes it back at all. No, scratch that. Positive thinking. He  _has_  to make it back. The situation: not good. Not  _bad_ , but could be much better. Could be  _so_ much better. But he can make it back.

Nick Valentine seems to be determined to make  _sure_  of it.

As it is, he’s got a handsome synth who has his good arm hauled around his shoulders right now, half-carrying him across the Commons. They’re not far from Diamond City, but the world’s spinning and Deacon figures he’s not gonna be the right person to ask for measure of time and distance right now. Also something he’s not equipped to do right now: talk, or the ability to stop himself from doing just that.

“S’rry for the impromptu weightlifting session, Valentine,” Deacon says, slurs, hates the way his mouth doesn’t seem to be cooperating. His face hasn’t been much more than numb since it got slammed into concrete by a particularly pissed off raider a couple of hours back. “Not saying I hate what it’ll do to your shoulders though. I like my robodetectives broad.  _Rrrrr_.”

“Conserve your energy, you lost a lot of blood.” Nick chastises quietly, golden eyes trained on the surroundings, face dead serious. “We’re almost to Diamond City. Sun owes me a favour anyhow — this seems serious enough.”

“Y’make it sound like a  _challenge_ , Nicky V. Wait ‘til I tell you ‘bout the time with me and a couple of deathclaws.  _Worst_  tea party of my life.” Deacon tries. Grins through the dried blood covering half his face. Nick doesn’t say anything, and Deacon pretends he doesn’t know why his heart sinks, or why his stomach grows a little cold.

Except he knows. Of course he fucking knows. He’s too tired for denial.

Nick’s been helping with the Railroad as soon as they’d started popping their heads above surface to get more recruits. The origins of the Railroad had been a weird thing of half being a freedom fighter sorta team, and half being a support group for synth lovers anonymous. Made up mostly of people who had their synth family, friends and/or lovers taken away or killed, or synths themselves. Pretty niche team, and while it was fine when it was a group of people trying to help a couple of synths out of the Institute’s hands, it’s a riskier factor altogether with more synths coming in, and the Institute sniffing around looking for missing cargo. Needed more people. Allies. Helpers. Not everyone would stick their neck out for this sort of cause, but there’s bound to be people who could at least keep a look out. Feed some intel. Fire some warning shots to give them little guys a head start, you know?

Railroad had stuck out their feelers for sympathizers then, for any potential allies. And then a pair of glowing yellow eyes made their way over to the Switchboard, and, well.

Deacon hadn’t expected ‘em to get along as well as they did. The liar and the truthseeker. But life is nothing if not a finnicky funny pain in the ass, and so the things Deacon figured out about Nick, and quickly:

The guy’s wise, but not a smartass. Confident in his abilities without ever being arrogant or condescending, always about humility and being humble. Empathetic, sympathetic, analytical, but never cold. Honest, of course. Generous beyond words. Great shot, great brain, an all round talented individual. Has the ability to sass people into submission. A heart of gold alloy, shining like a beacon to help anyone who needs it.

Perfect, basically. The embodiment of all that’s good left in the wasteland.  _And handsome to boot_ , Deacon thinks,  _and ain’t that just unfair for the rest of us._

They got along remarkably well despite Deacon’s penchant for bullshitting hard enough to make brahmin jealous, and Nick’s uncanny ability to see right through it. Got along well enough that he’s been basically Nick’s Railroad partner for the better part of the last five years. Nothing like a couple of wisecracks travelling together, saving synths, shooting bad guys! It’s almost comic book. Very buddy cop, except if the devious, painfully handsome dumbass fell in love with the even more painfully handsome cop.

Yeah. So. Not ideal, this.

The point is, Deacon’s known this long enough that denial’s been pretty much thrown out the window. He knows what his heart wants. But his heart is stupid, and he can’t be in denial if he just never thinks about it ever and burns the thought back in ritual fire, alongside the usual cold, shaking, horrendous fears of losing another someone close to him, of being unlovable, of not knowing how to love at all. You know. The usual things.

And besides. Railroad ops are growing bigger and bigger by the second, the Switchboard is full of people and there’s new recruits growing by the day. Nick is their key person in diamond city next to the new weapons guy they’d just sent in from the southern ‘wealth. Deacon’s dumbest move right now would be to say anything, not while it’s getting good, not  _ever._ He can’t ruin another good thing in his life, can’t make things personal, can’t ruin whatever miracle partnership he’s got with Valentine and potentially fuck himself up  _and_  the Railroad just because of his delicate, inconsiderate and badly timed feefees.

Only thing is, blood loss is one hell of a brain stopper though. He can’t help the semi-dizzy flirting that slips past his traitorous lips every so often on this remarkable journey across the wasteland. Lapsing into blabber is sort of his  _thing_ , and when his dream detective is hauling him like this, warm to the touch and solid under him (and also, like.  _Unfairly_  handsome in the winter’s afternoon) then, well. Cut him a little slack. He can always blame it on the blood loss later.

(And it’s not like he’s got any other chance. Loves feeling Nick’s name on his lips like this, playful in a way he wishes he could actually say when he’s  _not_  knock-knock-knockin’ on death’s door. He doesn’t get many chances to do this and get away with it. Doesn’t get many chances to be  _this close_  to not revel in the warmth of it, their proximity.

Just this once. Let him have this, just this once. And then when this is all over, he can go back to being alone — to making sure he won’t ruin everything by having fucking feelings, to making sure he can’t let losses get to him again.)

At least Nick doesn’t seem to be helping his rapidly failing mind by playing along to his antics. He’s been quiet all day, ever since they’d managed to take out the raider nest and Deacon found out about more holes in him than he started off with. A part of him is grateful Nick isn’t humouring his inability to shut the fuck up — the rest of him is, haha.  _Hurt._

Somehow, and honestly, it’s dumb, he’s not some lovestruck teenager worrying about what ol’ dannyboy by the farm shed thinks about his new digs — but part of him wonders if he fucked up. Wonders if he pissed off one of the most patient men in the Commonwealth somehow, or said something wrong. He likes to think he’s a bit of an overachiever sometimes, but he didn’t want to win the medal on this one.

Like, it wasn’t even his fault, walking into the raider’s nest! Agent Blackbird said the area was cleared like, two weeks ago. How was he to know that the new group would move in so fast? He was just there to scope it out with Nick, see what reinforcements they’d need to make before setting it up as a new safehouse. Was supposed to be a cake walk, but instead all he got was bulletfire, more than a few broken things in his body, and what he’s fairly sure was a flaming sword to his left thigh that’s making walking on his own frustratingly impossible.

It’s not his fault, is the point. But Nick’s been oddly quiet, unresponsive to Deacon’s chatter, and Deacon — Deacon doesn’t think he’s the kind of guy who gives a shit about what others think about him (in his line of work, shame is something quickly ditched over efficiency and safety) but that’s the thing: he cares about what  _Nick_  thinks about him. For some reason, it matters, even though Deacon already knows for a fact that he’s a piece of shit.

It’s just different, from when it’s in his head to when Nick is actually acting this way. He hates having his fears confirmed. Hates the way it makes his heart sink, makes him feel like an idiot.

Also: hates how he feels so damn  _clammy_  right now. He’s sweating, and pale and pasty, shivering like a leaf in a radstorm. They’re maybe a half hour, tops, from the great green butthole of the Commonwealth, but the distance seems infinite when he’s got a bum leg and a bum arm and a bum everything. And Nick, who seems bent on ignoring him. That hurts a lot more than Deacon cares to admit right now.

But  _shit_. It’s too much. He’s gonna —

“Nick, ‘m gonna pass out if we keep walking.” Deacon manages. Hates how hoarse his voice sounds. He’s parched, but they don’t have a single can of water between them. “Need to — I gotta sit down.”

“We ain’t that far now,” Nick says, sounding… honestly a little unreadable and Deacon pretends something cold doesn’t run down his spine. “Just a lil’ farther.”

Deacon gives a weak, shaky laugh. He can taste blood on his tongue. “Jus’ a lil’ farther and you might end up haulin’ my corpse there. I just need to stop for a sec, Nick. Promise I’m not gonna birdwatch, just — give me five minutes.”

He watches the furrow in Nick’s eyebrow grow deeper, before he finally relents and steers them towards a row of huge metal dumpsters built into the ground, by a building. Sets Deacon on top to sit on it, and Deacon feels the relief immediately. Dares to look down and immediately hates it — his pants leg is entirely soaked in blood by now. That’ll explain why he feels so woozy. Nick’s rudimentary battlefield patchup job had worked to stem the worst of it, but he’s gonna have to redo some of it, since the current thing stemming his bleeding is soaked all the way through.

“You might wanna look away,” Deacon hints, wincing as he unbuttons his jeans. He’s gonna have to pull down his pants a bit to rewind some new gauze around the wound. He hopes his balls don’t fuse to the metal dumpster top. “It’s. Yeah.”

Nick doesn’t look convinced. Damn it. Who gave this guy a heart of gold? “I can help, I ain’t — “

“I’m solid, Valentine. Great. Fuckin’  _aces_ , just. Turn away a couple of minutes, swear I’ll make it quick.” Deacon forces a grin.  _Don’t want you to see how bad it is right now_  goes unspoken. “Someone has to cover me anyway, right?”

He swears, if the furrow in Nick’s brow gets any deeper he’ll have to chisel the rest of it in. As it is, Nick doesn’t look approving of it at all, face hardened in a way Deacon doesn’t want to read too much into — but then he nods, and moves off. Stands a little further away and takes out a cigarette. The sour feeling in Deacon’s gut solidifies, but he doesn’t acknowledge it, and instead gets to work on doing quick re-bandaging before his clammy thighs freeze to the frozen top of this dumpster, and  _that’ll_  be a thing to explain to Carrington.

It’s quick work. It’s… not the bestest work everest, but it’ll have to do, between his shaking fingers and their lack of supplies. He’s going to really have to nag at Dez about keeping their agents better stocked. Him and Nick and only two stims to their name at the beginning of this, really? Such brahminshit, but Deacon is nothing if not adaptable, so he makes the best he can to reapply the bandages, puts more pressure on the wound this time, and then slips his jeans back on while Valentine stands in front of him, back turned. Wide open.

What happens next is, if asked, not his brightest moment, but to be  _absolutely fair_  he’s not anywhere near a great state of mind when the idea comes to him.

He gathers some snow up by his feet. Can barely feel it on his bare fingers, but manages to clump it up into a hefty snowball. Ignores the red stains it has on it from the dried blood, and takes aim.

“Hey, Valentine.” Deacon grins. “You look like you need to chill out.”

“What — “ Nick turns. Stops halfway, eyes brightening in recognition, and then, “Don’t you dare throw that snowball — “

Deacon does. He absolutely throws that snowball. It hits Nick right on the shoulder (which, okay, he’s a little proud of, he’s got some fantastic double vision slowly making itself known here which might be the concussion or the blood loss or both) and Deacon finds himself  _giggling_  over it for a second, half delirious in the childish thrill, until he takes in the look on Nick’s face.

It’s  _furious_.

“God _damn_ it!” Nick curses, throwing his cigarette to the ground, and Deacon feels his heart drop like a stone. Shit. Shit, shit,  _shit_ , that was stupid, why did he have to go and —  “Deacon!”

Deacon laughs, shakily. Grips the edges of the metal dumpster until his knuckles whiten. He feels like an idiot now — what compelled him to do that? What is he, five? He’s not some dumb teenager anymore flirting with the stableboy, he’s. He. “Ha, yeah, uh — listen, think we can both agree that what i just did was  _stupendously_  dumb, and if we just never mention it again i think that’d be great on our mission reports, just  _super_ , and — “

“We ain’t got any  _time_  for this,” Nick says, tone  _frustrated_  and his expression, breaking over the anger and into — “We can’t waste anymore time playin’ like children when you’re  _bleedin’ out_  into the snow.”

And then Deacon finds himself being — practically  _lifted_ , arm slung around Nick’s shoulders again, and Deacon barely walks as Nick more or less lifts him enough that his toes barely scrape the ground. And then Nick is  _striding_  through the streets, and Deacon, for once, shuts up. There’s enough shame going through him. He doesn’t know why he had to ruin this thing with a  _snowball_. Desdemona is gonna install him a second asshole when she finds out Deacon accidentally got rid of their biggest Diamond City ally by nearly getting killed and then acting like a particularly delirious little  _kid_.

He does a remarkable job of shutting up. Partially from the shame, partially from the fact he’s slowly losing consciousness. Barely realizes when they arrive to Diamond City, barely awake when he’s laid on doc sun’s table and the good doctor gets to work on patching him up. He passes out before the end of the procedure. He doesn’t dream.

When he wakes up, he’s alone in a bed he’s oddly familiar with. And —  _yeah_ , fuck. Fantastic. Everything in his body hurts and hates him, and he winces as he forces himself to sit.  _Shit fuck damn it_  he hates.  _Everything_.

“You’re awake.” Comes a voice from beside him, and Deacon hates both the way he startles, and the way shame immediately creeps back into his system and settles in his ribs when he recognizes the voice.  _Fuck._

When he wrangles the basic spine to glance to the side, he sees familiar yellow eyes glowing right at him. Nick’s on a chair. Coat shed, sleeves rolled up to the elbows. The angry furrow in his brow is gone, mouth downturned but no longer furious, now he’s just looking at Deacon with what looks like — like fear. Like  _concern._  

And screw the Institute  _especially_  right now; for making the most perfect man-synth-person alive, and for ditching him. For giving him all the shit he’s had to deal with, and now for leading him here, because now Deacon wants to kiss that fantastically gorgeous downturned mouth until he can make it turn the other way round. His heart  _hurts_ , the way Nick’s looking at him, like Deacon wasn’t planning on waking up again.

He knows that feeling. And his other feelings are surfacing in the light of that.  _Fuck_ , he’s got it  _bad_  and it only makes the memory of earlier today worse.

“You were out some hours. Sun says you’ll make a full recovery. Just gonna ache a couple ‘a days. I sent Arturo to update the rest of ‘em through a dead drop, so, you oughta rest here and lie low ‘til you feel better.” Nick says, voice going gentle. Deacon’s chest nearly burns from the force of his fondness for this synth.  _This is how he’s gonna go._  “And, about what happened today — “

“I’m  _sorry_.” It comes out of Deacon’s mouth before he can clench it between his teeth. He winces at the sound of it. He hasn’t been a kid for  _decades_ , but he sure feels like one now, owning up to a hand in the cookie jar. He’s an adult and one of the Railroad’s best, but for right now, he feels like a regular ol’ dumbass. Might as well own up to it, for fucking once. “That stupid snowball thing, and whatever I did to piss you off. Listen, I swear, I didn’t  _know_  the group would ambush us like that —  _ahah_ , once I get back to HQ I’m gonna ask Dez to send us somewhere  _nice_  for once — “

“Deacon,” Nick says, cuts him off, “I wasn’t mad at  _you_.”

Deacon pauses. Turns to look. Nick looks — sheepish, almost. Frustrated, but almost ashamed? Shy? The only time Deacon needs words, and they don’t work.

“Jus’ — been workin’ together so long, got cocky. Almost  _lost you_ , back there. So used to us workin’ like clockwork, I kept my guard down.” Nick tries. A metal, skeletal hand slips under his hat, a nervous tic, and Deacon keeps watching curiously. Something burns in his chest — something that feels like anticipation. His heart won’t stop thrumming. “I got angry about that. Angry an’  _scared_. About the Railroad an’ all the dangers you’ve had to risk, about me an’ how I could’a stopped half of this from happening if I’d just been more alert. The snowball, just — I was real worried, and you weren’t, and I got frustrated an’ I took it out on you.”

Something warm and fragile and  _terrifying_  breaks in Deacon’s chest, and his pulse goes loud in his ears. Well, hell. If he wasn’t weak to Valentine before, this seals the deal.

It’s been a long, long time since someone’s given this much of a shit about him. It’s scary as fuck.

“’Fraid that’s just part of the occupational hazards, Valentine. Y’know, gunfire, deathclaws, the Institute, food poisoning. Tinker Tom’s Taco Tuesdays.” Deacon tries, putting some pep in his voice that doesn’t work, judging by how Nick looks up at him. His next words are —  softer, lower. “I’m not special, Nick. This kind of thing —  it doesn’t happen to just me. We all knew what we got into when we joined up.  _You_  know this. You can’t be angry at the Railroad for that — s’just part of the terms and conditions.”

Nick sighs, somehow, robotic through his voicebox. “I know, I know. Doesn’t mean I gotta be alright with it. An’ it doesn’t change the fact I got too cocky workin’ with you, almost got both of us killed.”

“No. Not  _even,_ nah-ah, not a chance in hell,  _stop_. You did what you could. Shit happens.  _You_  got me out alive, mister detective cop guy. I’m still here ‘cause of you. You gotta, you know — accentuate the positives.” Deacon says, firmly. Fails tremendously at his own stupid smile when Nick’s mouth quirks up at that. “You flatter me anyway. Guess we just make that good of a team, Valentine. Power partners.”

And Nick’s looking at him in a way that makes something soft and gooey drip all over the insides of his lungs, laughing tender and  _good_  in a way that heals Deacon more than a stimpak ever could. Job accomplished, mission completed. Survived an attack, and managed to not collossally fuck up with Nick Valentine. Wonderful.  _Aces_. He’s grinning too hard, cheeks hurting when Nick looks at him this way, and he’d feel almost shy except he’s just really relieved he hasn’t driven off possibly the one man in the Commonwealth who might know him the most out of anyone alive, and —

And then Nick leans forward and presses his mouth to Deacon’s, and Deacon’s mind.

Just.

Stops.

His heart is thrumming in his ears, pulsing, but distant. He doesn’t feel real. He can’t  _breathe_ , until he feels Nick’s warm mouth start to pull away, and his body moves for him before his mind can catch up,  _aching_  with the abrupt loss —

He grabs Nick by the front of his shirt and pulls him closer and kisses him again, almost smashes their mouths together from the force of it.  _Properly_ , kisses him like he’ll die tomorrow, kisses him like the world is dying around them and Nick is the last good thing left in the wasteland. And then Nick is kissing  _back_ , his one good hand on top of Deacon’s own, and Deacon’s heart  _explodes._

( He swears that he could die happy now. He  _could_. Selfishly, for just a little while, he doesn’t care if he leaves the Railroad, leaves the rest — he’s spent so long fighting the good fight, and this is all he wants now. He wants  _Nick_. He  _does_. )

When they pull away, Deacon’s breathing harder than he’d like to admit. It’s almost embarrassing, sort of, how heated his face feels,  _knows_  for a fact he’s got red splotching all the way down his neck and to his ears, but he hears a quiet but intense  _whirring_  sound and it’s a couple of second before he realizes it’s coming from Valentine, who looks  — … happy.

“Been wantin’ to do that for a long time.” Nick says, low and coarse somehow and Deacon feels warmth explode in his chest,  _he what,_  “I, I know your organization doesn’t look kindly on me doin’ that, an’ if you don’t want to — “

(Nick wants him back. Shit, Nick wants him  _back_ , and Deacon doesn’t think he knows what to do with this information beyond grinning like a fucking  _idiot_.)

“Who said I don’t want to?  _I_  didn’t say it. Hey, point me to the jackass who said it, promise I’ll make him change his tune.” Deacon grins, despite the pain. Despite the  _fear_ , that doing this is just a death sentence. Because getting attached is the worst idea possible. For once, for  _once —_ he wants his mind to shut up. Let him have this. Just this one time, this one time. Make out with the robot boyfriend of his dreams now, worry about their lives and the wasteland and Deacon’s own fucked up issues later.

Nick smiles, soft and tender and  _fond_ , and oh, God, he didn’t see that before.

“Stay here with me a couple days. Lay low ‘til you feel better.” Nick offers, gently, and Deacon swallows hard. He’s never — he hasn’t wanted anything so badly for himself in. In a long, long time.

“Yeah,” Deacon says, voice cracking a little bit, before he clears it and grins. “Sounds good.”

 _Just this once_.

 

**Author's Note:**

> this one's really bad sorry guys mostly done just to see if i can still do the uh. writing thing (thank you to waggs for the prompt)
> 
> i have a [tumblr](http://keycchan.tumblr.com) come yell at me until i beat my brainweirds with a stick and write more


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